A Perfect Lady, page 16
part #3 of The Mackenzie Brothers Series
“Didn’t you say there was a housekeeper on staff?” she asked, wiping her finger on her skirt.
“There was, but Mrs. Martin was rather old, so it’s possible she’s dead now.”
“James!”
He grinned at her around the wardrobe door. “She was. I can’t help that. I’ll ask, and if she is, once you’re settled, you can go about hiring one. Eventually, God willing, we will one day have a full staff and a decent enough house for them to actually keep.”
She smiled at his back. God willing, that wouldn’t be all they would have.
Rebecca hoped that, come morning, daylight would do something to make Stonebridge seem a little less…dreary. After all, sunshine could work miracles in turning the dingy to bright.
Except for in this house, apparently.
She stood in the small dining room, staring at the mismatched furnishings. Dust coated everything at least half an inch thick. And what was that smearing the glass globes? When was the last time light streamed through the grimy windowpanes?
Her cuff came away smudged black, but at least a narrow shaft of pale light burned through. It wasn’t much, but it brightened the room a bit.
In the kitchen, she found a pile of rags in a basket tucked into the corner opposite the cold fireplace. Since Mary had passed on last February, according to James, who’d asked his father, at least six months had passed since anyone last cleaned anything. That didn’t surprise her at all.
Half the window panes were cleaned when boot steps sounded on the battered wood floor, and she looked up to see James standing on the threshold between the dining room and corridor. The pile of rags now spilled across the scratched table, and three filthy rags lay in basket. She’d given up trying to remain clean, black smears streaking the front of her pale blue linen dress. Fortunately, it was an old dress, faded from repeated washings, for she had the feeling the streaks would not come out.
James leaned against the doorway. “Keeping busy?”
“I hadn’t intended on starting here — ” she gestured to the window with the rag “ — but this room was so dark and gloomy, I just started wiping down the glass. And here we are.”
“You’ve been in here all morning?”
She nodded. “As I said, I hadn’t intended on it but — ”
“You need to take care of yourself, Becca.”
“I’m fine, James.” The work took her mind off the nausea that had crept back into her belly as she adjusted to dry land. It wasn’t as bad as it had been on St. Kitts, however, and for that she was thankful.
“Still — ”
“There is no still. As I said, I’m fine. Now, did you need me for something? Because if not, I’d like to finish. Although — ” she frowned as she looked about the room “ — perhaps it would be best if I didn’t allow too much light.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she cringed. Somehow, they hadn’t sounded so whiny in her head, so ungrateful. “That is — ”
“You need not explain.” His easy manner disappeared, replaced by a sudden tension across his shoulders and in the line of his jaw. “I am well aware of the sad state of repairs here. If you remember, I warned you about it.”
“I didn’t mean it quite as it sounded. I’m sure it’s nothing a bit of cleaning won’t improve.” She swallowed hard as a hard look came into his eyes. “Oh, I should probably be quiet right about now, shouldn’t I?”
“No. Feel free to speak your mind. I can’t fault you, can I? Stonebridge is a far cry from Windemere. I’d probably be horrified if I’d given up that for this as well.” With that, he pushed away from the wall and stalked from the room, his footsteps growing fainter as he stomped down the corridor.
The door slamming made her jump, but she righted herself in time to throw open the window just as he passed. “You are being silly, James.”
He halted his stride to glare at her. “Silly? I don’t need you to point out why this house is barely inhabitable,e and I don’t need you to be so condescending to me about it, either. You need to remember that the only reason why you are here is because I have an aversion to joining the British Navy.”
Fury scorched the edges of his words and sliced through her like one of the machetes used on Windemere to cut sugarcane, stunning her into silence. She pressed her lips together as she tried to gather her thoughts, but they were such a jumbled mess that the only thing she could mutter was a shamefaced, “Very well. I will take care not to be so condescending toward you again,” and draw herself back in the window.
James didn’t reply, but resumed his pace to stalk out of sight as he rounded the corner. Rebecca resumed her cleaning, but her lighthearted mood was shattered. Now, instead of humming happily to herself, she trudged through the motions, the job now tedious and dull. Bit by bit, dust and grime met their maker. However, when she was finished, the room looked even shabbier, as light penetrated to show the faded, worn carpet and uneven floorboards.
Her arms and back ached, but her nausea faded into memory. The tiredness pervading her was a good one, for it carried a sense of accomplishment with it.
“Did you do this?”
She jumped, whipping about to find Patrick McKenzie in the corridor outside the dining room. His unruly white eyebrows were pulled low, his scowl firmly in place. Bracing herself for his anger, she nodded. “I did. It needed a good cleaning.”
He didn’t reply, simply staring at her through cold blue eyes. In the light, the lines of his face were more deeply etched into his skin. He looked ancient. Ancient and grouchy and thoroughly disagreeable. It was no surprise James sought solace on the sea. She’d been in Stonebridge less than a day and felt the misery within its walls sinking into her skin.
“I suppose you think of yourself as lady of the manor now.” His voice was low and raspy, as if it hurt him to speak.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not exactly settled in yet.”
He surveyed the room, his scowl deepening. “I didn’t ask you to do this.”
“No. No, you didn’t. But I can see no reason for so much dirt and clutter in this house. All it needs is a good cleaning and — ” she wrinkled her nose at the somewhat sour smell rolling toward her. Apparently he wasn’t at all fond of changing his clothing on a regular basis “ — airing out. I don’t mind doing it.”
“How good of you.”
She stepped back as he ambled by her, his sharp eyes flicking upward and down, from the left to the right. It was as if he searched for something she missed, something he could point out to her. The floor dipped under his weight, creaking loudly enough that she actually held her breath to see if it would hold them both.
He ran a thick finger along the windowsill, which she found comical. Did he honestly expect her to believe he cared if she missed a speck of dirt? Controlling her smile was difficult, as he repeated the motion on the backs of the chairs, along the chipped sideboard, and became almost impossible when he pushed up onto his toes to see the top of a painting.
“I suppose you think this makes this your home?”
“I can assure you, I think nothing of the sort.” She swept up her pile of rags and left him looking for more dirt. In the kitchen, she deposited the rags back in their basket, and then sat at the battered, empty work table. Her belly growled. “I wonder if there is any food here?” she muttered beneath her breath.
Judging by Patrick’s skeletal appearance, he didn’t eat often. Still, she needed to, so she raided the pantry, where she found flour and honey, and not much else. The honey had crystallized, but she was hungry enough not to care. By the time she finished, her nausea returned, so she sat at the table until her belly calmed enough.
She was still sitting there when the kitchen door opened and another spindly old man carrying two paper sacks stepped over the sill. He paused, one foot on the stone floor. “Who the devil are you?”
“I might ask the same of you.”
“I am Mr. Charles. Does Commodore McKenzie know you’re here, miss?” The old man closed the door behind him and joined her at the table, where he deposited the sacks. One contained apples, which rolled across the table’s battered surface.
“He does. I am Captain McKenzie’s wife.”
The old man’s snowy eyebrows shot up. “Impossible. Captain McKenzie is in the West Indies. Who are you, really, and what are you doing here?”
She was tired, nauseated, and in no mood for a territorial servant. “I’ve told you who I am. Now, if you wish to verify that, go and speak with Mr. — that is — Commodore McKenzie. I’m sure he will be very eager to tell you who I am. In the meantime,” she rose from her bench, “I am going up above to lie down.”
She didn’t wait for his protest, but made her way above, where she stretched out on the bed with a long, low sigh of appreciation. Her feeling of triumph at the look of surprise on the butler’s face faded quickly as her nausea surged up. She missed home, missed her father. She even missed Agnes, whom she hadn’t seen since that morning in Mr. Morris’s cabin, and her whereabouts were a mystery to her. Even Agnes’s sour demeanor would be welcome now.
A sense of isolation bit into her, gnawed away at her as her eyes filled with tears. How could she have ever thought this was something she wanted? Now she was in a strange land, in a strange bed, trapped with two men who made it painfully obvious they didn’t want her around.
Her hand came to rest on her belly, on the slightest of protrusions that hadn’t been there only a week earlier. A smile pulled at her lips as she let her fingers curve against it, almost cradling her belly as if the baby were actually there.
The sadness lifted, rolled out like a fog. Left in its wake was a strange serenity, one she’d never felt before. It overwhelmed her, and the tears that came to her eyes weren’t sad. Perhaps things would get better.
Chapter Fifteen
James stood in the middle of Eagleton’s warehouse, sleeves rolled up, stock discarded, and the throat of his shirt loosened, and he frowned. “Mr. Hawkes, Mr. Duncan isn’t going to be happy when he learns a third of his china was broken between here and London.”
Will Hawkes ran a hand through his rust-colored mop, his ruddy cheeks even redder. “’Be honest, Captain, I don’t think Mr. Duncan’ll mind at all. He made damn certain Lloyd’s insured it, so he’ll recoup his loss.”
James helped him close the battered crate. The hinges squeaked, rust flaking off the lock as he snapped it shut. “What exactly happened to it?”
“Storm two days out of London. Everything in the hold got tossed from one end to the other, and unfortunately, Elijah was the one who was in charge of securing the cargo.”
“You put Eli in charge? The boy’s so wet behind the ears, he leaves puddles wherever he goes.” James crossed Duncan’s items off his inventory list and made his way to the next cargo. “You know better than that, Mr. Hawkes.”
“The lad needs the experience. How is he to learn, if no one ever lets him try?”
“And if Duncan hadn’t bought insurance on his china?”
Hawkes cleared his throat. “I’ll remember that next time.”
“Please do.” James pressed the sheaf of wrinkled parchment at Hawkes. “Have him stick to counting crates, Mr. Hawkes. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my office.”
Without waiting for a response, he strode off between the rows of crates toward the rear of the warehouse, where he made his office in a small corner room. It thankfully had a window; the breeze wafting in off the water stunk of rotten fish and salty water, but at least it was cool.
Still, it did little to ease his troubled thoughts as he sank into his chair and leaned back, closing his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so damned furious at himself. It would be a long time before he forgot the look of utter shock on his wife’s face, if he ever forgot it at all. The way her eyes went round, wide and glassy with a hurt he could only imagine. The only way he could have been crueler would have been to… no, he didn’t think he could possibly have been crueler. Short of suggesting she drop dead, that is.
This had to stop. She certainly did not become pregnant by herself, and yet he acted as if she had, if she’d schemed and plotted to ensnare him. Which was silly, because no lady of her background and breeding would plot and scheme to ensnare a not-quite-poverty-stricken-but-damn-close-to-it sea captain.
Besides, if he was absolutely honest with himself — and that was something he wasn’t particularly adept at — he really wasn’t quite so angry these days. Hadn’t been, actually, since that morning they made love in his cabin. Oh, it was still there, only faded into a lesser form, and he forgot about it for hours at a time. The closer Rebecca was, the easier it became to forget how great an aversion he had to the marital state.
What had she said that was so terrible, that would make him want to hurl such awful words at her? She only pointed out that he already knew. Stonebridge was a disaster. It was only barely inhabitable, thanks to his father’s skinflint ways and refusal to spent a penny on upkeep. He’d given up after his wife, James’s mother, left. There was no point to it, he liked to insist. No parties would be held there. No visitors would ever come to call. There would be no grandchildren as the two sons who were on their way to family life were both killed before their marriages produced children. Widows began new lives in new towns. Only James was left — the one son who’d decided marriage was not for him. The war, the aftermath, wanting to be on the ocean rather than on dry land — those were the ways he’d occupy his time. A woman here, perhaps. One there. That was all the attachment he wanted or needed. If any one of those women bore him a child, he knew nothing about it, and had no desire to find out about any.
But this child, the one Rebecca carried, this one he wanted to know. She didn’t know it, but every night, when she slept, he gingerly stretched out beside her, taking great pains not to wake her, since she might not take finding him lying with her so lightly. But he loved being so close to her, feeling how her soft curves molded against him. Ever so gently, he let his fingertips explore the soft roundness of her lower belly. She grew a little bit each day, and when he first felt the mound of their child, his heart actually skipped a beat.
He stared out the window without really seeing anything. Perhaps the time had come to let go of his anger entirely, for them to try to forge a fresh new start with each other. Besides, until he apologized for his asinine behavior, the chances of being able to think clearly enough to keep from making any more mistakes were slim to none.
He swung back to his desk, tossed down his quill, and lifted his frock coat from the back of his chair. He shrugged into it, but ignored his stock, letting it lay limp and wrinkled about his neck as he hurried back out to where Hawkes and Eli were still counting cargoes.
“If anyone needs me, I’ll be at Stonebridge. However, I am only to be disturbed if it is a life or death emergency. Is that understood?”
Both men nodded and Hawkes said, “Certainly, Captain.”
As he put distance between the warehouse and himself, his spirits rose. It was always possible he was too late, and if so, he’d simply have to find a way to win her back. He’d wooed her into his bed once — twice, actually — and there was no reason why he couldn’t put his charm to work once more and lure her there a third time. And that third time would be the charm. Of that, he was certain.
The first thing he noticed about Stonebridge was how every set of shutters and every window was open. Not only that, but the windows in the parlor actually had curtains fluttering in the breeze. He paused, one foot on the first step, and stared. Curtains? When did the parlor windows receive curtains?
He found his father in the parlor, frowning as he stared down at the length of pale blue fabric stretched across his lap. “Commodore?”
Patrick looked up. “Your wife. She found it in your mother’s chambers.”
James looked from the fabric, back to his father. “You permitted her in Mother’s rooms?”
“Let her? No.” Patrick shook his head, folding one end of the material back over his lap. “She took it upon herself to venture in there. She’s headstrong, isn’t she?”
“You might say that.” James drew over a low footstool to his father’s chair to sit upon. “What are you doing?”
“She decided the parlor and dining room needed draperies. I’m to look for any pulls or snags in the fabric.”
Biting back a grin at the disgust in his father’s voice, James nodded. “I see. And have you?”
“None so far.” Patrick’s bushy eyebrows seemed to meld into one another as he scowled. “Been sitting here since noon. Damn near cross-eyed from staring at this damn thing.”
“And Rebecca?”
“She’s above somewhere. Probably poking her nose somewhere else it doesn’t belong.”
“Commodore, you might not be happy about this, but it is her home now.”
“The hell it is,” Patrick said, finally looking up from the fabric. “This is my home and — ”
“She is my wife.” James braced his hands against his thighs, palm down, and stretched his fingers to keep his temper in check. “And that makes this her home. If the worst thing she does is make it look homier, you will just have to live with it. Trust me, curtains aren’t the worst thing she could do. Short of setting fire to the house, anything would be an improvement. It’s a damn shame that I’ve allowed you to just let it go the way you have.”
Patrick didn’t reply, but just grunted as he bent back over the fabric. James stared at the top of his head, waiting for him to continue. When Patrick remained silent, James left him there, to go in search of Rebecca.
A gently lilting song wafted toward him as he reached the top of the staircase. Rebecca’s voice was light and sweet and did much to brighten the atmosphere. It came from the room at the far end of the corridor.
